For those looking to avoid GMOs meticulously, please note some of the tomato breeds suggested as resistant to verticillium wilt are on the lists linked to in the first article as being owned by or connected to Monsanto. I'm more interested in keeping the dang things from cross-pollinating the entire world than I am concerned about the potential ill effects of eating GMOs, but it's still something to look at.

Probably going to do a tiny container garden if we're not moving this summer. A pot of dill, a pot of oregano, and whatever local flowers suit my fancy. Dreams of tomatoes and marigolds and plants for both caterpillars and butterflies will have to wait.

***

Today's been delightful all around. The scheduled three-hour power outage to enable wiring work for the eventual solar panels on our block was this morning. Huzzah. :/ I stuck it out for an hour with the boys before Mark's plaintive requests for Backyardigans drove me to dress everybody and head to Walmart for pedialyte. He's smart enough to know the Kindle can provide cartoons when the tv does not, but unfortunately trying to explain the Kindle needs internet access for Netflix or Amazon Prime video and internet access in turn requires electricity.... Not going to happen. Complete failure to grok.

Jack hasn't thrown up since last night, when he crawled between his fitted sheet and the mattress and proceeded to lose his entire dinner. ::face-palm:: Right now he's napping on the couch. Mark's still got diarrhea. Aside from that, they're bouncy and acting completely normal. So I don't feel TOO bad about foisting them on the staff member who will watch them while I'm at Mark's IEP tomorrow afternoon.

I'm all out of my dairy-free cream cheese, sour cream, and shredded cheese. :( Not willing to drag the boys out into the wet snow/rain/wind mix we have going on, not for that. Pedialyte and individially bottled juice so we didn't have to open the fridge was a necessity. Snacks are not.

Just found out that PPLD has every book on page three of my Amazon wish list for craft/sewing books, and a good-sized chunk of page two. (Page one is primarily composed of knitting/crocheting/amigurumi books, and until I get semi-skilled on doing basic knit and crochet, I'm not going to check to see if they're available.)

Thus far, I've read some of Ursula K Leguin's oldest books in the Hainish series. I have a couple gardening books sitting upstairs to be read while doing laundry this morning. I have a classic book on feminism by Simone de Beauvoir. And a copy of Bimbos of The Death Sun, a really adorably goofy little mystery book set in late 1980's scifi/fantasy convention culture, that I first read well over ten years ago in the collection of a certain extremely ex-boyfriend; one of the few good memories I have of that time.

And I have a ton of books on my holds list that will eventually make their way to me. :D

Dentist tomorrow. :/ I'd consider chickening out, except we're required to have a DOD form filled out by my dentist as part of our out-processing for Japan/protesting the Japan assignment via EFMP process.

At least the cymbalta seems to be keeping me less abjectly terrified than I'd normally be the day before a dental appt.

I can understand Country Girl incorrectly calling them abortion pills, she's from a conservative background which probably earnestly tells everyone they really are abortion pills and the people who say otherwise are godless liars, and she's also deeply freaked out about the near-miss she and Pizza Delivery Boy had with the unexpected walker at the pharmacy. (About which, more at some point.)

But god DAMN it you lazy writers! They are called morning after pills for a reason! If you're at the point where you're testing positive on a pee strip and having stereotypical nausea symptoms, you've got a fertilized egg implanted and the morning-after pill won't do damn skippy to help you anymore! Throw in a couple lines about how the pregnant woman knows they probably won't work but she's desperate enough to try anyway!

St. Thomas Aquinas in Milwaukee in the 1980's was very very progressive. No wonder my dad didn't much care for it. :/ As I recall, he not only kept trying to convince Mom to go to a parish that had less singing, but at one point tried to get us to attend a church that still maintained pre-Vatican II dress codes and Latin liturgy. Mom put her foot down HARD on that last one. She LIKED the ability to wear pants and not worry about sleeve length or whether she'd remembered her hair veil. (Some days I really wonder how they managed to stay married all these decades.)

Very good movie. I understand the complaints it's gotten about being a rehash of "Monarchs want eldest daughter to make political marriage, daughter wants no part of it, plot ensues".... But it's basically what happens in a LOT of movies, only this time instead of, for example, Jasmine doing nothing much in Alladin I while her man fixes things for her, Merida gets to actually actively DO something about it.

I kinda wish the "woodcarver" had gotten a scene at the end where Merida suddenly gets her entire order dumped on the castle front steps.... and the courtyard.... and Queen Elinor's latest tapestry... ^_^ I liked her a lot.

Had some very minor gastric issues when eating dinner afterward. :( But I was wise enough to not force myself to finish eating, and merely ended up feeling drained and tired the rest of the day.

Tom and I both slept in til nearly nine, as Mark did not make his usual fuss when discovering nobody was on hand to tend to his adorable Zodlingish demands.

This proved unfortunate. ^_^;;

He found the empty laundry basket downstairs, lugged it into his room, turned it upside down, and used it as a step stool to yank down most of his clothes from the shelf. (We don't have a dresser in his room because of his penchant for yanking out the drawers, stacking them precariously, and either trying to grab at the ceiling fan or jumping from the heap to the bed to the floor and back again.)

He wrought merry havoc with the already partially broken mini blinds over the backdoor window.

He got into the contents of the go-bag, and spread a small tube of sunblock all over the kitchen floor.

Could have been worse. No urine or bowel movement issues occurred. :/ And on the upside, he figured out how to get a Backyardigans DVD into the player and functioning properly. Probably part of why he was quiet so long.... But it shows cognitive and fine motor skills that are good to have.

Right now he and Tom are off to get his haircut and bring home Burger King for lunch. We plan to head out to Palmer Park later this afternoon, too.

In the meantime - preheating the oven for our dinner, wrangling boys, and plotting both reading and critiquing of the new library books, of which I have read two and a half out of six since I got them Tuesday. ::nerdly gleeful bounce::

Auntie Steph sent him a horse head on a stick, which has the capacity to make battery-operated whinnying noises, and which Mark kept trying to steal. We ended up hiding it in Jack's room. ^_^ He also got a small plushie horse and a pair of plastic horse figures from me and Tom. He adores all of them, but is particularly fond of the figures; Tom picked them out.

Cupcakes continue to be a failure. Mark was at least willing to pick up the cut chunks and press them to his lips - but not to taste them or even open his mouth. Jack completely ignored his cupcake in favor of playing with his new horsies.

I tried adding drops of food coloring to two of the cupcakes, just to play around with color. Two drops of red in one cupcake, and two drops of blue in another cupcake, stirred into the batter with a clean knife for each one. The color came out not nearly as saturated as I hoped, and while it covered the top, it didn't quite penetrate all the way out to the sides of the base, just filled the center. Steph suggested next time I should try a concentrated food color gel that's supposed to give really good saturation without the funky flavor excess amounts of regular food coloring can give. I hadn't been aware this gel existed, or that too much food coloring makes things taste odd; the last time I played around with food coloring was when I was a kid and colored Easter eggs.

Not that it matters, when my boys steadfastly refuse to EAT my efforts. ;p But it'll be fun to play with.

Had a very nasty bout of gastro. symptoms starting around dinner time Tuesday, which finally ebbed around midnight, and have spent the last two days recovering from the after effects. Sigh. At least it didn't kick in until after I got to the library with the boys to retrieve some of my holds.

Finally felt good enough this afternoon to make a short jaunt to the Citadel for window shopping. Assuming I don't have ANOTHER bout, I'm planning to go see Brave on Saturday, after Tom gets back from Dragonman and also makes sure the office doesn't need him to update the website again. He's planning to see either Prometheus or Avengers tomorrow night. I hope he picks the latter; I am dying to geek out at him over it. ^_^

Right now, he's at the store, and I'm wrangling Zodlings. Probably going to break out some of my library books while they watch Backyardigans; it is entirely too hot in the yard to let them loose.

Both times he woke up screaming and required cuddling and soothing, poor boy. :(

Then as I was getting ready to slip out of his room the second time.... Mark comes stumbling into the open doorway, soaking wet. :( Changed him completely; changed his bed and laid a towel over the wet spot in the mattress, under the sheet; crawled into *his* bed this time and tried to get back to sleep.

This did not last.

Ended up sprawled on the couch with boy and husband, snarking at the misogyny and feminist RAGE inducing writing in an episode of Curious George which teaches Professor Wiseman, a scientific genius and woman that coking is really chemistry, tee hee hee.

x_x

I leave you guys with Rockapella performing Zombie Jamboree, which sadly youTube does not have in classic Carmen Sandiego version.

Reminds me of the strategy implemented in some of the WI recalls - don't go after the legislators responsible, or that you stand a chance in hell of actually voting out given their district's demographics. Just go after legislators who are immediately eligible for recall. (And get your asses handed to you, causing much chortling amongst your foes...)

By the same token - go after Roberts, whom was the ACTUAL deciding vote? Heavens no. Conservatives are cranky at him, but don't actually have any grounds to impeach. But Kagan, who was an "uphold" vote from the get-go? Well.... Ummmm.... Here we go! She was Solicitor General when the law first went into effect! She should have recused herself! Bad girl! Congress smash!

If I decide to pass on the trip to Denver, (which seems likely, as not only do I not entirely trust myself not to panic even on the relatively safe route I've chosen, but I have EFMP to work on and the usual round of stomach issues,) I need to figure out on what to spend the money not already apportioned to paying off JCP this payperiod.

Do I buy more books?? :;bounce, squee::

Or do I pick one of the projects I've been raring to go on from one of my sewing books, and get the supplies required?

Hmmmm.

***

The EFMP voicemail box is once again accepting messages - but no one has called me back. I double checked my own voicemail, and all it contained were a recording from Sarah explaining the same details in her email regarding cancelling today's session, and two recordings from JCP's credit card call center (which should stop for a bit, given I was required to give them at least 35 bucks but instead paid nearly half my bill Saturday). Le sigh. Going to keep calling. It's all I can do.

***

About the only Unfuck Your Habitat principle I've been able to use today was making my bed shortly after waking up. Sigh. Trying to clean a coat closet in short intervals with short breaks in between works a LOT better when the Small Boy-shaped Creatures aren't trying to steal Daddy's winter gloves or climb into the closet and sit on top of my rolled up yoga mat. :;face-palm:: This is why sections of my house GET this way to begin with. On the upside, I did shove most of the heaviest winter coats into the under-utilized closets of my library and Jack's room, and I cleaned up the top shelf.

***

Seriously looking forward to the heat breaking; the backyard becomes uninhabitable as early as ten am lately. My poor boys miss their swing set, but we won't be able to go back out til at least 4 or 5 pm. :(

Comic artist Dylan Meconis is doing a kickstarter to raise printing costs for a reprint of her vampire satire comic Bite Me!, a book of her not-yet-in-print graphic novella Outfoxed, and a series of illustrations she did called Danse Macabre. (Sadly, no sign of Family Man (NSFW) being ready for print anytime soon, but since she's currently on a one page a week schedule while she does other forms of freelance paying work, that may take a while.)

I love her art, and I love her writing. If you haven't tried her work before, please do, and if you have, please take part in the kickstarter.

I don't entirely grok tumblr, so I don't know how to bring this to their attention.

(I have entirely too many Firefox tabs open, as per usual. :D Jack is volubly displeased that Mommy is insisting on taking periodic breaks from pushing him on the swing, but that's nothing new. I'm being more insistent on the breaks than usual as I am still recovering from that nasty little illness. He'll live, and hopefully he'll learn to pump his legs like Mark does.)

Breaks down how much each party in WI got from in-state vs. out-of-state donors, and each individual candidate. Also has a convenient map detailing how much money the main parties in each state get from internal vs. external donors.

Just placed an order on Amazon, for part of Tom's Father's Day present, and for myself: Deadline and Blackout by Mira Grant, Chi's Sweet Home Vol. 1 by Kanata Konami, and Not Love But Delicious Foods by Fumi Yoshinaga. (Alas, Ooku Vol. 7 isn't out til July.)

I cobbled together an AWESOME dessert with the filling from Vegan Pie In The Sky's cherry pie recipe and the topping from their apple crisp recipe. Tom and I adored it; sadly, the finicky Zodlings did not. :p

Between Jack deciding to be audibly awake to the point of bouncing off the walls of his bedroom at ungodly hours, and Tom's need to be awake at 4 am for morning duty, this has been a terrible week for attempting to resume reduced soda consumption or at least decaffeinating myself. :p

Next week bodes no better, despite Tom's morning duty ending Friday, as we have determined to get Jack cloth underwear on payday and start potty-training in earnest. x_x

If Tom winds up going on *another* Caribbean TDY this summer, as he did last, and which is possibly in the works, I am SO going on a massive book-shopping spree of squee. ;p (This is in addition to the book-squee-spree I already intend for payday.)

Did a small amount of visible-spot mopping and a grand total of four squats while pushing Jack-jack on the swings Tuesday.

Paying for it. Itai. Actually took pain meds last night, and will probably do it again in a sec. I need my max. allotment of spoons for the end-of-year picnic Jack's class is having at Memorial Park. (Mark's is having a potluck *in the classroom*. Not even on the pre-k playground. :p I called him in sick and cancelled his bus.)

Reading stuff over at John Scalzi's blog, since LJ's karenhealey linked there yesterday and now the awesome nagaina has as well. Good stuff; good patience on the part of those commenters willing to help educate people who aren't just Basic Social Justice 101, but in the remedial section.

I personally think a better analogy, at least for USA-raised nerds of my own vintage, would be Oregon Trail, not an RPG on various difficulty settings. But that's a fairly small subset of the people who need this analogy, so not all that useful for addressing the larger problem.

After the picnic, which we will bail out of at the first sign of meltdowns or otherwise unacceptable Zodling shenanigans, we will probably swing by Burger King for fries for the boys, and then on to Walmart for the belated payday shopping.